Michael and Margaret Baudinet welcomed a true Christmas miracle on Dec. 4 — healthy quintuplets. The young fab five made their way into the world at Dignity Health St. Joseph’s Hospital and Medical Center in Phoenix, Arizona.

It was the first time in St. Joseph’s 121-year history that staff have delivered quintuplets, AZCentral.com reported — and the babies had a visit from Santa on Wednesday.

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Margaret Baudinet, 31, has blogged about the experience, sharing how the couple struggled to conceive and also experienced miscarriage. After hormone therapy, she became pregnant with the quintuplets — Ava, Clara, Camille, Luke, and Isabelle. (Yes, little boy Luke is a little outnumbered!)

The couple temporarily moved to Arizona from Virginia earlier this year to work with Dr. John Elliott, a world-renowned specialist in multiple-birth pregnancies who says he has delivered more quints than anyone in the world, according to AZCentral.com.

In the beginning, Elliott told the mother-to-be to eat 4,500 calories per day for the babies. She struggled with this directive as a “yogi from small-town Alabama,” she wrote on her blog. Once she reached 24 weeks, the point at which the babies could survive outside the womb, she said her parents took her out in a wheelchair to shop for the babies, and friends and family set up a nursery for them back in Virginia. With Elliott’s help, the babies were born at 32 weeks, weighing three to four pounds — well past the average for quints.

[lz_bulleted_list title=”Quick Quint Facts” source=”http://www.verywell.com”]Parents of quintuplets change more than 35,000 diapers before the kids are potty trained.|The first set of quintuplets born in the U.S. were the Kanouse quints of Watertown, Wisconsin, in 1875.They did not survive.|The Fischer quintuplets were the first surviving quintuplets in the U.S., born in 1963 in South Dakota.|Baseball player Melvin Mora is a dad of quintuplets born in 2001.|The mascots of the 2008 Beijing Olympics were quintuplets.[/lz_bulleted_list]

“For those of you waiting on the parenthood experience, please know it’s worth the wait. And remember I say that without an ounce of bitterness or judgment in my heart,” Margaret Baudinet blogged. “As one who has waited, please know God will bless each and every day you wait. Joy comes in the morning. This I know for sure.”

Baudinet said it wasn’t until she was discharged from the hospital with her babies that her fear of complications abated. “I have a very odd relationship with hope,” she said Wednesday at the hospital, according to NBC News.

Perhaps the world’s most famous quintuplets are the Dionne Quintuplets born in Canada in 1934 — the first surviving set of identical quintuplets. The girls — Annette, Émilie, Yvonne, Cécile, and Marie — attracted worldwide attention.

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They were removed from their parents’ care and placed in the custody of a doctor, who sadly displayed them as a tourist attraction.

Quintuplets Around the World in 2016
In the Ukraine town of Odessa, an expectant mom got the surprise of her life in June when instead of delivering the twins she was expecting, she delivered quintuplets.

Oksana Kobeletska went from a mother of one to a mother of six in mere minutes, after she gave birth to three boys and two girls via a C-section, The Mirror reported. The 37-year-old was delighted with her bundles of joy — but vastly surprised.

She said, “I’m very shocked because I thought that [I was having] twins or something like that. Nobody in our family has ever had it [quintuplets]. There was not a single case of that kind. Generally speaking, I never anticipated it.”

Kobletska and her husband, the parents of a a three-year-old daughter, were presented with an apartment from Odessa city officials after the five new babies were born, according to The Mirror.

The babies were delivered with the help of eight doctors and nurses on June 24.

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The Tucci bundles of joy (photo: Erin Elizabeth Photography)

A birth of quintuplets is believed to be a first for Ukraine. The parents named their five newborns Denis, Dariya, Vladislav, Oleksandra and David.

Over in Australia, Kimberly Tucci of Warnbro made headlines after naturally conceiving and giving birth to healthy quintuplets on Jan. 28, when the babies were just shy of 30 weeks gestational age, according to Fox News.

Babies Tiffany, Penelope, Beatrix, Allie and Keith arrived happy and healthy to their grateful parents. “I was very lucky to have an amazing medical team supporting me,” she wrote on Facebook on Jan. 29. “Thank you for giving me an exceptional birth!”

She and her husband, Vaughn, had two daughters already and had been trying for a third child when they learned they had conceived five children: four girls and one boy.

Related: Expectant Moms Need More Checkups

They told the media they did not use IVF, which can increase the chances of multiple births, as Fox reported. Doctors estimate that naturally conceiving quintuplets — that is, without IVF or fertility drugs — happens only about one in 55 million times.

Tucci’s grandmother, Denise Waddell, set up a GoFundMe page in May to raise money for a van so the family would no longer have to travel in three separate cars. Their goal of $40,000 was reached.

Related: New Parents Need No Sleep, Apparently

Wadell wrote on the page that the Tuccis are “desperate for any financial assistance,” and that they were hoping to buy an LDV G10 — the cheapest car in Australia that’s big enough to fit their family. “The reality is they are a long way from being in a position to buy this car and pay for the extra child seat anchor points that will need to be fitted,” she wrote on GoFundMe. “The family will be eternally grateful for any support you can give them.”